20 miles at Bear Creek Lake

Yesterday Cory and I were set on running our 20 miler on the Highline Canal Trail. We like this trail, it's fairly flat and has a soft surface.

Highline Canal from our 18 mile run

I was dreading running 20 there mainly because we have ran so much on it. So last minute we decided to go to Bear Creek Lake Park and run loops.Trying to pretend that I feel strong before starting out.

There are many different path's to run. On our first loops was just a bit under 5 miles everything felt pretty good and we stopped at the car for Gatorade and a bathroom break.The second and third loop we ran the opposite direction and ran a slightly different way. By the end of the second loop I had pretty bad blister pain so stopped at the car for a band-aid and a change of socks. At the second car stop I ate a few potato chips, I couldn't help it, they looked so good and salty. I felt fine after eating them so I am happy to know that I can stomach solid foods on long runs. We shared the trails with many horses and mountain bikers.
I was feeling pretty good until mile about mile 14 when my hips and knees started to hurt.

My legs continued to hurt until we got back to the car at mile 16. We headed out for a 2 mile out and back and amazingly my legs stopped hurting, admittedly I was running pretty slow at this point. We got back to our car at 20 miles exactly. We had planned on taking a natural ice bath in the creek but we were running late so we just took the time to soak our aching feet before rushing home. Sometimes I forget how much harder it is to run on trails than flat paths.

I feel really good about having 20 miles under my belt and hope things don't fall apart on race day, I am a bit nervous that the marathon is on all pavement.

The worst thing about the run was being rushed afterward. We had plans in the evening and had to rush home and get ready without our normal ice bath rituals. Obviously I am more sore today then I would like because of this. We had planned a 45 mile bike ride today, but it may drop down to 40 miles because of our sore legs and losing an hour. Happy Sunday!